"Electrify" A 40 Second Instrumental

JohnnyAmato

JohnnyAmato

New member
Actually re-mixed this and re-did the drums a few weeks ago, held off posting it so I wouldn't flood the clinic too much. As always, I couldn't be more thankful for all the friendly help I've received here. You guys are great, and I've learned a lot about mixing thanks to you. I love listening to all the great music here as it is inspiring, and a learning experience.

If you're wondering why I do so many short songs, I have a friend who runs a fishing website and he uses my songs in his videos. I also have a close friend who runs a 49er webcast show every week that has become quite popular, and he uses my music also (no I'm not a 49er fan)

Anyway, this one is like 3 years old, and only about 40 seconds long. I recently re-did the drums with SD, major improvement from the old drum machine track. Naturally, had to re-mix it as well.

Electrify (Demo) | Johnny Amato
 
Drums pump really nice. Are you compressing them as a group or individually? How about bass? For the way it's being used I'd say it's no big deal, but the hats aren't varied much in velocity. SD does that. They get a good groove, but once you start repeating those 4 bars, those hats become the most obviously programmed piece. Copy/paste/copy/paste and now you've got a million hat hits that vary only within each bar, and sometimes not even then or not by much. Like I said, for podcasts or quick videos, not a big deal at all. I wouldn't worry about it.

Sounds really good, I have nothing to suggest otherwise. Nice job man
 
Actually, I didn't compress anything at all. Individually, the drums have a little reverb, that's it. Kick is dry, though. The bass had a tiny bit of compression going in from the Digitech board when tracked, but that was it (aside from the bass amp sim, which I believe was "Showbass" )

I did compress the final two-track mixdown a little in Soundforge with a preset (mastering program) maybe that's what you're hearing. I know ProTools can do that too, but I've used Soundforge for years (have latest version now) and I'm just used to it. I don't really know how to master, but the preset helps to get my stuff louder obviously, but still not to commercial loudness. I use the "Smooth Compression" preset that has a ratio of 3.5:1, a threshold of -8.0, an attack time of 10ms, and a release time of 1000ms. Still slowly learning about compression and what all that means. The output gain in the preset is set to "0", but it still makes the track louder somehow, without really changing how it sounds, or making it sound squashed. Does seem to glue it together nice though. I need to experiment more with it. Do you master your own songs yourself?

The hats will be easy to go over quickly for this tune, it's so short. If nothing else jumped out at you mix-wise, then that's a good thing.

Thanks for the listen.
 
Really good mix, Johnny.

Something odd going on between the snare and lead guitar, though, where the lead guitar sounds behind the snare. Not sure if that's due to reverb on the guitar or the snare being too loud. I'd try to fine tune that. Make a backup first so if it doesn't work you can go back to this mix.
 
Thanks Nola. I will lower the snare a tad and see how it sounds. My initial concern was that the bass was too hot, but neither you or andru mentioned it, so it must be ok.

Thanks for the input.

Edit: There's only minimal reverb on the leads, maybe none. I did this like 3 years ago, so I'm not totally sure, but I almost never track with reverb coming from the board. There is a little delay on it though, and it was a stereo lead track with a little chorus. With the snare being dead center and maybe a touch too loud, that might be what you're hearing. I'll try lowering it a touch.
 
I liked it. really good guitar playing. Nice rocking groove. I don't really have any nits. Well, maybe the guitar has more delay than I would personally use. That's subjective though.
great track johnny!
 
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